Asking for a fictional friend who somehow ended up blacklisted from renting anywhere in town and now has to rely on a sexy, mysterious bad boy for a place to crash. Yep. I.O.U by Kristy Marie starts off with that kind of energy—and it just gets better from there. I read it expecting a popcorn romance, but I’m still thinking about these characters days later.

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The Cover

There are multiple covers for I.O.U. When I downloaded it to my Kindle, the cover was a photo of tattooed abs and hands holding cards. Since then the Kindle cover has been updated to the illustrated version. I find it very interesting how different the covers are, yet both are in some ways appropriate for this book.

A)  The “classic” steamy novel cover featuring a hot male bod or portion thereof, hints that this is an open door style novel, which it is. The tattoos speak to the “bad-boy” aesthetic, which is also on point. The handwritten style of the font on this cover is well in line with the storyline.
On the other hand…

B) The illustrated cover shows both male and female main characters, highlights the playing cards, but downplays the open door spice and makes the MMC look a bit more like a jock or boy next door than the dangerous persona that the writing describes. This cover’s font is decidedly playful and feminine, which has a lot more to do with the FMC, who is not the wielder of the cards, so to speak. The characters are in college, so it is probably more age-appropriate. At first glance, this cover gives more young adult vibes, and may be misleading to the end reader, especially if they go in thinking this is a closed door romance.

Ultimately, I think cover A is more in tune with the tone of the writing in I.O.U, and if given the choice, that is the cover I would recommend using.

Interior

I enjoyed the addition of the graphics and the stylizing of the POV at the beginning of the chapters and at other breaks. The “Rumor has it…” highlights are a nice touch. The alternate text styling (font, spacing, indentation) to indicate text messages are a useful detail. I find that a lot of kindle books that are independently published have errors. Unfortunately it is not exactly clear who is responsible for this book design, which is a shame, because they did a great job and I’d love to call that out here.

Did the design affect whether I bought the book?

Yes. I skim through my daily BookBub email with some speed so something has to stand out for me to click through. The cover (version A) stopped my scroll and the title, description, and price did the rest. I’m glad that it had the original version of the cover or I might have missed this story.

Ainsley- Why doesn’t she have any friends? She seems totally likable, no-bullshit, and fun. The firefighters immediately like her and want to help her.

Maverick – would have loved to have had more detail into his transition into being the badboy that we see when we first meet him and his relationship with his two buddies.

Both main characters in I.O.U are well drawn enough to be semi-believable, and are sassy and quick-witted enough to make you genuinely root for them. Their interactions build a realistic scaffolding on which their love can grow.

The side characters add a lot of atmosphere and certainly help to drive the plot along.

Tucker and Taylor are easy to dislike, which is obviously the point. there isn’t a lot of nuance here, so one has to wonder, what was Ainsley doing with these clowns?

Snappy dialogue and quick pacing, there isn’t any lag. The descriptions are enough, but not too much. There is a bit of reliance on repeated patterns both in building the characters and setting scenes to move the plot forward. However, it isn’t so repetitive that is becomes irritating. POV is clearly announced at the beginning of each chapter.

Major tropes: Grumpy-Sunshine and Forced Proximity, this also has a hint of enemies to lovers.

So you’ll have to suspend reality with regards to the setup here. Understandably, this no friends to stay with element is needed to force proximity, but it felt a bit unbelievable. Also, why couldn’t she move into the dorms? Surely someone at the housing office would have helped her. It’s also pretty unlikely that a small fire would have gotten her banned from every apartment complex in the entire town. If there were going to be consequences, it probably would have been for all three people in the altercation. That said, if you can overlook the forced nature of the forced proximity, the story is pretty damn cute.

I liked this book. I thought it would be one of those popcorn romances to gobble up and leave behind, but I found myself thinking about the characters and their story well beyond putting the book down. Are there plot holes? Yes. However, I was happy to set that aside and enjoy the story of I.O.U.. I’d have loved to see this a little more developed, but I am not deterred from recommending it.

I.O.U is an easy to read rom-com with some wit, some sass, some heart, and some eye-roll-worthy shenanigans. Its funny and heartwarming, but not to be looked at too closely in terms of reality. Give it a read and let me know what you think.

• Some spice
• Available on Kindle Unlimited

Which cover do you like best and why? Tell me in the comments.

May your life be as full as your bookshelf and as long as your TBR list.

Happy Reading!